


We Auctioned Off Our Memories

by indevan



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Death, Discussion of war, Hair Washing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 09:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21492313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Sylvain and Felix have a late night discussion in the baths one night about the latest battle
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 78





	We Auctioned Off Our Memories

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for the Crimson Flower route!!

The baths were mercifully empty when Felix arrived. Torches burned against the stone walls, filling the chamber with warm, orange light. None of it seemed to touch him. There private baths sequestered behind another wall and normally he opted for them, but the baths were empty and the hour was late so he just stripped down in front of the communal bath and slipped in. The magicked water fizzed against his sides as he slid beneath. It was always warm, this water, which was much different from the water at home they had to heat up. Part of him was amazed they got it to work again, but maybe it always worked. This monastery was a strange place, after all.

Felix closed his eyes and let his head tip back, the tip of his horsetail dipping into the water. He wanted a distraction and he still felt unclean after that last battle, as though blood were still clinging to his skin.

“Well, this is a surprise.”

Felix let out a grunt of annoyance and opened his eyes. He didn’t have to. He would know that voice in his sleep. He would know it in death. Sylvain stood before him, higher above him even more than usual due to Felix floating in the bath water. He looked burnished and copper-gold in the light of the bath and his mind filled in the annoyingly artistic and poetic bits to describe him before he could stop himself. Sylvain always had that effect on him. He had his clothes neatly folded under one arm, a basket with soaps in the other, and a towel around his waist, low on his hips. Felix didn’t have to guess that he was already naked underneath.

He placed his clothes near the pile where Felix had left his and removed the towel--confirming what he already knew--and folding it to be put next to the clothes. The sight of him naked wasn’t anything new even if his heart treacherously skipped a beat whenever he saw him. Sylvain slipped into the water, the lot of his fizzing and bubbling from the disturbance. He let out a sigh and let his head fall back against the wall. Felix watched him, watched for signs of tension in his neck or shoulders that he didn’t notice before that would be laid bare in the baths. To even his keen eye, Sylvain looked as he always did. He seemed so flippant about everything, he wondered if what they were doing even affected him. If what happened a day ago (a day? A week? An eternity? It was all the same in his mind) unsettled him as much as it did Felix.

Instead, he looked content, submerged in the water as he was, arms spread along the wall, head back, eyes closed. His mouth was slack, lips parted enough that Felix could lean over and kiss them if he wanted to. He wasn’t sure if he did. Their arrangement was always up in the air, although perhaps Felix was a bit too removed in calling it an “arrangement” and not a relationship. But relationships had parameters and more often than not were precursors for marriage when they were serious. Not that there was reason for them to be married now. Would the Gautiers, if they were still around, be pleased that their treasonous son found someone else with a crest, but that would be mitigated by. Everything else.

Sylvain cracked an eye open to look at him.

“You alright?”

“Are you?”

This was something Glenn taught him when they were children. If anyone ever asked him if he was alright that he should fire the question back at them. It was the best practical advice he was ever given. Glenn...his chest still tightened, but maybe for another reason now.

Sylvain chuckled. “Good question.”

He swam towards him and reached out to put a hand near Felix’s face. The hand was wet and his face was still dry and so he wrinkled his nose.

“What do you want?”

“You came to take a bath and your hair is still up. You’re a mess.”

Sylvain chuckled and went to fetch the soap basket.

“C’mere.”

His voice was low and husky as though he were talking to a lover. Was that what Felix was to him? Was their coupling an inevitability of their promise as children, of their time together? Or was it that they were all that was left and had come together from shared guilt? He didn’t have an answer for now, so he just went to him. Sylvain sat on one of the steps and set Felix between his legs. He undid the tie in his hair and ran his fingers through the damp strands. He let out a slight hiss of pleasure.

Sylvain soaped up his hands and began working a lather into Felix’s hair. He leaned back into him, wanting more of the touch. It was times like these where things were easy. They were truly lovers enjoying a bath together in an empty chamber. Nothing else mattered.

“You’re so tense,” he murmured.

He began massaging Felix’s scalp, rubbing at his temples and at the base of his skull. Sylvain’s hands were nowhere near as callused as his. He avoided training most days and, in battle, he wore heavy gloves. They still weren’t silken or soft, though, and the slight rasp of his skin against his hair was nice.

Felix swallowed heavily and let his eyes drift shut. For this moment, they were truly in their own world. The events of the past days (months?) no longer mattered. Until he saw it again. The horse bucking and collapsing. Its rider already motionless, white fur of a mantle already stained red. He snapped his eyes open.

“What is it?” Sylvain asked.

His hands were lower now, massaging Felix’s neck and shoulders. There was a particularly stubborn knot he always got on his non-dominant arm. He could hear the muscles move under the pad of Sylvain’s thumb, wincing only slightly.

“My father is dead,” he said.

Sylvain stilled his ministrations.

“Yes. He is.”

What his father said to him before he died was lost on him. In battle, blood rushed around his head, making it hard for him to remember minute details. But he saw his face. The disappointment, the raw anger.

“I killed him,” he said, the words catching in his throat.

“Yes. You did.”

He had seen him, mounted on his horse, sigil appearing in his hand to heal his allies. Someone (Hubert? Professor Byleth?) had given the order to take out Lord Rodrigue and he was the closest. A twist of fate and a cruel one at that. His father vexed him, but he never saw it coming to this. His father said something to him, but he didn’t hear it. But it must have been important, because he said it twice. When he fell along, with his horse, he was already dead. Eyes open, skin paler than normal, hair in his face. Felix stood there, holding his blade, but not as steady as he had before. And that hadn’t even been the end of it. They were separated, the four of them, more now than before. Even after the Tragedy. The schism was real.

“And Ingrid…”

He hadn’t killed her, but he had seen her die.

“She and Ashe were always talking about knight’s stories together,” he said and gave a snort. “All of that annoying prattle.”

The insult was hollow and Sylvain knew it.

“He killed her,” he said after a moment.

Ashe, fine-boned and small--though not as small as before--firing an arrow sure and true. He cried out as he did, pulling the bowstring with all his might. Ingrid had gone down with her pegasus, in a flurry of feathers. Unlike his father, she wasn’t dead until she hit the ground. The image that so annoyed him in their academy days came back. Ashe and Ingrid eagerly sharing books with one another, exchanging them over their desks in free periods between classes.

“It’s war,” Sylvain said. He drew his hands up to cradle Felix’s face. “Relax your jaw.”

That felt too flippant. Why was Sylvain like this? Did he feel no regret? Did he not wake up, gasping from another nightmare as more and more familiar faces met them on the battlefield. Felix didn’t expect to be so affected by it. War had been a chance to hone his blade, this path one he chose reluctantly but one he chose nonetheless. But after that battle and knowing what was to come.

“We didn’t know what would happen when we switched classes. None of us could guess but. Here we are. We chose to follow the Professor’s guidance.” Sylvain tapped the joint of his jaw. “Now relax.”

He let his jaw go slack so Sylvain could massage the tense muscles there.

“And you don’t care?”

An impatient sigh. “Talking makes it hard to massage you.”

Felix pulled away from him. Dunked his head to wash out the soap. The water fizzed over his ears as he did, drowning out all other sounds. He came up and stared at Sylvain who still sat across from him.

“You don’t care?” he repeated, surprised at how soft his voice came out.

Sylvain glared at him. There it was. He covered it all so well, but the anger was there. It always was.

“Of course I do! But what can we do? We just go onto the next, yeah? Dwelling makes it worse. It makes it real. So you tamp it down until the next and the next. Until it’s over or you’re dead.”

Felix didn’t agree with that only in part because he didn’t know what he was going to do once the war was over. Obviously there was no place for him in Fraldarius territory.

“And that works?”

“Fuck no!”

Sylvain was well and truly angry now. The gentle lover washing his hair and telling him to relax was gone.

“Because what’s the alternative? Falling to pieces? We don’t have that luxury, Felix. We have to keep keeping on. We have to keep killing people we used to be friends with because it’s them or us. No matter what it does to us.”

As usual, his flippancy was nothing more than carefully crafted masks to hide his true feelings. Sylvain might not care about going against the church (his stance on Crests was clear), but this affected him. This made him question their choice.

“Are you prepared to kill Dimitri?” Sylvain asked.

Was he? Before he might not have hesitated. He had told everyone that would listen to take down the Boar Prince before he well and truly snapped. But that was before all of this. Before his father’s face, pale and pinched, as he fell. The flurry of feathers and blonde hair.

“It doesn’t have to be my blade that fells him.”

“Shortcut answer.” Sylvain smiled in a way that was more like a wince. “But I get it.”

Did he? Felix floated in the bath water and stared back at him. Was he prepared? Would this be the last time he would see how Sylvain truly felt before he buried himself once again. He would put on the face of the flirt, even in the face of death, and Felix would let him. Because he didn’t have the energy to call him out anymore. Or maybe he didn’t want to. This was how Sylvain dealt with it. It wasn’t good or clean, but how was Felix’s way any better? What even was his way? He closed his eyes and saw his father’s mouth moving, forming words he didn’t catch. He saw Ashe’s arm cock back.

Soap trailed from his hair, swirling white in the water before the water worked its magic to remove it.

“Felix.”

The way Sylvain said his name sounded wounded. He held his arms out to him.

“C’mere. No more heavy stuff for now. Okay? Yeah...yeah.”

There wasn’t much sense in that statement and in a painful way, he was reminded of Dimitri. They would have to kill him. This he knew. Preparedness was a different story. He looked at Sylvain, arms out, head cocked to the side. They were both dealing with this poorly. But there was a part of him that was right. They had to just keep going until it was done or they were dead.

Not talking about it wouldn’t take the images from his head, but he didn’t know what else to do. Felix waded through the water and went into his embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: vertigoats  
twitter: smugsnail


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